Gecko

a poem by Roger B Rueda

        

A tense gecko briskly hunting for food

looked beneath him

and saw a man bend down,

pick up a rock

and throw it onto the tree

above the trunk

where the gecko was climbing

smoothly up.

He looked above him

and saw the gleaming moon

watching him

in the lacklustre, gloomy sky.

As the clouds started to glide

and cover the moon

as a blanket would a babe,

the watchful little gecko,

spotted a creepy-crawly

on the trunk.

He was thinking of bringing it

to his lair as rainy days

had already arrived, but he

noticed four trees standing tall

when everything else is flat.

Two trees wore long dresses

like women at a pageant

and two stood as bare as a cob

with all the corn eaten up.

All of a sudden,

the gecko overheard something

when the whole world was still,

a kind swishy noise

rung loudly in the gecko’s ear.

A soft tip tap

rebounded all at once

in the gecko’s head.

Swiftly,

the gecko disappeared

into his lair,

and the whole world was

silent again.

When the gecko

looked about in his lair,

he noticed

that he was in the planet of geckos.

[First saw print in Philippines Graphic, 12 September 2011]